Deep Breath
by allfatherdamnitloki
Summary: Detta is a zombie with no voice (tends to happen when your throat is ripped out). Callum is her fiance who buried their pictures when she walked away from death. Dylan is just trying to survive as one of few living people in a mostly dead world. Three lives, three voices (well two) all tell the same story. Fanfiction, OC cast, rated M for gore, smut, language, all that jazz.
1. The Voiceless

You know that feeling you get, when you're reading, watching something, or hell even talking and someone mentions breathing? Or you're in the doctor's office and they put a shiny bit of ice against your back and tell you to 'breathe normally'?

That feeling, that awareness that you're breathing. The worry you're not doing it enough, the way it sits on your mind. Scientifically the part of the brain that maintains breathing is the medulla oblongata, which is the lower part of the brain stem-which connects to the spinal cord and so on. When you read it though, you have this drive this impulse to be in control, until you are.

When you are in control you find it very difficult to give up that control and let your body function normally. Not because you don't want to breathe, but because it is on your mind to and you better get it done.

That's how I feel right now. I have control but don't want it, and unlike you I can't try to think of something else to forget it.

Why?

Well it's because I'm dead.

Oh please don't feel bad for me, in the world I lived in being dead isn't so bad. Aside from eating people here and there, moaning and groaning, and of course rotting-dead's not as bad as it used to be. Plus I'm not alone, I'm surrounded by the dead. An old woman dragging a leash, couples holding hands up and down the flickering escalator, other couples flopping limp and dry body parts together. Yep I'm living the dream of death here. It's funny; in life I never liked airports. Now I live in one-ironic to say live. There should be a better word, there is a better word, but my brain is probably starting to rot. Means I'm a little dimmer than I used to be.

Still even with that I'm the smartest corpse you're going to meet. I'm also the newest one here, a meal interrupted only to rise again and follow the ones who would have eaten me. My name, I'm pretty sure is Claudette, everyone I knew in life called me Detta though. It was a nickname brought on by an accent I used to have-I can't speak anymore. My lips can move to form words, but see when the zombies go for food. They go for the throat, and guess what's in the human throat? That's right vocal chords!

Mine are gone. I can't even make the usual moaning sounds my fellow dead do. I used to sing, which takes both breath and voice. I don't have either anymore, being dead sucks-but hey it's a living.

There I go making jokes again, I'm so funny. I'd laugh if I could, really. I'm dead what else have I got to do?

Today is normal, today is boring. I stumble about, one foot on the cold floor-when I was killed. I kicked, one of my shoes came off, so I'm in the awkward position of being the only zombie with just one shoe. Sure there are many of us with only one limb-but one shoe? For a corpse I am incredibly self-conscious. The only thing I could be glad of was the lack of rigor, livor and algor-mortis.

Basically getting stiff, swelling up, getting cold. Well I've skipped the middle one at least. I'm good-looking to be dead I think. My hair is still put up, bits of red flash in front of my eyes-in my impaired state I thought it was blood and tried to bite once, my dress is still mostly blue and my little jacket mostly white. I died pretty, but the thing is-as time passes I can't remember why I was dressed up.

It's like for every day you are dead you lose another of your life. I can remember myself, my name, my voice, how I loved to paint and sing-but I can't remember dying. I can't remember the people who made up my living life. I can't remember life really-just death. Just being at the airport, walking always walking.

I don't sleep and aside from passing bodies and occasional hunting parties. Nothing happens here. There is no measure of time in this afterlife.

I don't know how long I've been here anymore but it feels like a lifetime and a breath all at once. You know the kid, the ones the doctor tells you to take, and the one you suck in as a book mentions the act. The one you take as you open your eyes and realize you no longer need to.. That's how I feel about where I am now. There's no forward or backward, there is just one breath I need to take.

Only problem is there's a hole in my throat, and the dead don't need air.


	2. The Heartbroken

My name is Callum and I just had sex. Every part of my body is still tingling, and I hate myself for it.

I didn't hurt my partner, no; even now he places his head just below my chin, his ragged breath calming to a soft dozy sound. It isn't that my partner is a man either.

No I hate myself because while my fiancé walks and eats other people I'm getting fucked in the ass by a guy that could pass as her brother. See, I was there when she died, I watched the undead push her down, watched her shoe roll across the floor like some sick Cinderella and while I did kill her killer. I just let her go. I should have ended her, closed her eyes, bullet to the skull and let her go.

It's hard for me to let things go however. Maybe that's why even after a year I'm angry with myself. I let something as beautiful and pure as my Claudette, become a monster.

Everyone's lost someone in this world, but she wasn't supposed to go. She was sunshine after the rain, a song on the wind. Detta did what very few did, she tried to actually be human not just survive. She knew every song Elvis ever sang, could quote the entire Harry Potter series-the girl still remembered Winnie the Pooh for god's sake-but in a flash of teeth I lost her. In a bad decision I let death have her and make her a tool, a puppet no longer the love of my live but a corpse with her face.

Green eyes became gray and my heart faded away. I always did want to be a poet. Detta supported it of course but there is no room for poets in the world. I'm tall and good with a gun, I must be a guard. Not a bad gig, enough to keep me busy. Keep me from digging up our box of photos once a month.

I haven't thought of her in a while. Dylan-the one sleeping on me. He keeps me busy, keeps me happy and if it's possible after what I've been through I think I love him. He's not Detta, aside from similar features he's nothing like her. A morbid sort of prankster with sad eyes and matching attitude. No I'm only kidding, he's not that bad. I make him laugh.

"Do you have duty tonight?" I sigh, Dylan and I try to spend time with one another but frankly-all we do is fuck. I feel like shit for that too, guess I've just got a guilty mindset. "No, but I was going to go out, there's a group, says there's nine of them. Gringo wants me to check it out."

"You mean you want to check it out?" I close my eyes so I don't see his and move from under him. "Yes."

"-to see her?"

"If she's there, might as well finish her off. Not fair for her to be like that." I'm fighting to keep the emotion out of my voice while twirling the ring on my finger. We were going to be married as soon as possible, stole the rings from a jewelry store (funny thing, with all the looting we didn't expect to find anything). We were going to have a life together.

No kids of course, Detta was scared of having them. I feel Dylan's fingers in my hair, pale and clever fingers running through a tangle of dark curls. I always hated having curly hair.

"It's not your fault you know." I scoot to the edge of the bed and sit up, shaking my head. Thoughts of Detta drop out like water after a shower. "Yeah. I gotta go get ready." I need a shower before I go out. I need to brush my teeth. "Okay..I love you Callum." I freeze, my heart thumps in my chest to remind me I am alive. It thumps quicker to remind me I am alive and in love. I look back and smile at Dylan who's watching me with big green eyes, just like Detta used to.

Dylan and Detta, both redheads, both have green eyes (or in her case, had, they were so pretty, it killed me to see them go gray). I'm madly in love with each of them, but I'm not sure who I'm speaking to when I say:

"I love you too babe."

I'm an awful person. I know I am as I turn the shower on, but I am what I am. What I am is hurt; everyone is hurt in this world. Dylan is hurt because he knows I still love her, Detta is hurt because she's undead now-I'm hurt because I was left behind.

I hate myself.


	3. The Scarred

Sorry this chapter took so long, had the flu. I'm better and back to writing now! Also I just learned Warm Bodies is going to be a movie soon, I am so friggin' excited!

If it's not too much to ask drop me a review, I'm curious how people like my work! Thank you and enjoy!

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When I was a kid the world was ending. I was from a small town in the mountains, we hadn't seen the dead but we heard of them. My mother thought it'd be safer to head towards the city; she rounded up all our neighbors. Fifty people, men women, children, hell if I remember right one of the women had a baby on the road. I remember the screams best of all, not of her in pain, or her later death. No it was the baby. The sound of brand new life made my young mind shake with some kind of an energy. Sadly though like my mother, the woman and her new baby died just as we got to the city; as did my father, the baby's father. We were attacked, passing too close to what I now know as 'the airport'-which is literally an airport. Everyone inside is dead though, I know that now.

Back then our group had no idea and the dead swarmed in. I watched the attack. I watched one rip through my mother's throat, I saw the baby-god that poor baby. Only a toddler-it didn't have a chance. I screamed (of course I did) and my father came to my rescue. He shoved me into a car and covered my body with his own. I watched his face shift to silent agony as they ripped his back open, I saw his mouth fall open in a silent scream as they ripped his spine out. He was dead so fast, and all I could do was weep silently into his bloody shirt.

I was just a little boy then, and when it was over I had to shove my daddy off and run. Someone from the stadium found me and I was an orphan. I still am, only now I feel a little less like a wayfaring stranger. I have Callum in my life and he's all the family I think I need, he holds me, loves me, and I love him. That's what a family is right? Like that mother holding her new baby, whispering soft nothings in the dark-Callum loves me like that.

I don't really care if I'm not his first love. He's mine, and that's what matters, right?

After he's left our room I've got to get up and ready as well. While he's saving people, I'm taking care of kids. Kids like me who have watched their entire families die. I tell them stories about life, love, sunshine things that make my world a little brighter. I teach them AC/DC songs, how to swear, things that make life fun. Last of all I teach them about death, I teach them that it happens to everyone and it's nothing to be afraid of.

It's a blatant lie but it makes them feel better.

"Hey Pickles!" I've walked to the orphanage and turn around. I only had a first name when they found me. Most of the kids I met had grown up watching Rugrats-and well 'Dylan Pickles' became my name. I'm not complaining though, I kind of like it-even though I've not eaten a pickle since my mother was alive. I don't even remember how they tasted.

"Yeah what is it?" I look back to see Nora, a very lovely young lady-who's usually accompanied by her friend Julie and sometimes Perry. I know Julie pretty well but I've never spoken to Nora. I just know her face, and the sound of her laugh. I used to have a crush on her, from a distance. "Julie's gone out again, can you keep it quiet in case her dad starts sniffing around." I nod but know that if I'm asked I'll tell the truth.

"Yeah sure."

"Thanks Pickles-also what's that on your neck?" I reach up and touch the center of my throat. Visions of teeth tearing through flesh dripping with blood pass through my mind-only to be replaced with soft kisses and nips at skin. I blush and pull the collar of my shirt up. "Hickey."

"Oh, I didn't know you had a girlfriend." There's an awkward silence and I look away with my bottom lip between my teeth. I've never spoken to Nora before and she apparently knows me well enough to think she knows my dating life. "I don't.." she blinks for a moment before it dawns on her. "Oh." I nod. "Yeah, don't tell anyone."

"No problem, see ya Pickles." I scoot inside the orphanage and look in the mirror on the wall to see how bad my hickey is. It's not too serious; I could pass it off for razor burn or something. I'm not ashamed of what I have with Callum, I'm in love and it's fantastic. The problem is I think he's ashamed of me, and being Gay isn't exactly accepted anymore. In what we call 'Gringoism' the point of being alive is survival of the human race. Stay alive as long as we can, make babies and die.

See the problem?

I'll spell it out just in case, Callum and I will never make babies-and even though it was legalized in the world before the dead, we'll probably never be allowed to marry either. Not that I think he wants to. His heart's still in Detta's pocket. I wonder if that zombie knows how lucky she is?

I walk into the room where there are already kids waiting on me, smiling with wide eyes. One tugs at me with a book in hand. I know I'm supposed to change their bedding first but I sit down. The book is old and battered and they don't care what it's about. They huddle around like babies to their mother and I read to them, making high-pitched crackling voices for witches and bold voices for the princes.

The world ended when I was a kid, but reading to them I feel like it might come back before they have kids. It's a nice thought anyways.


	4. Remember, Remember

I don't know how it happened, I don't know when it happened but I realized just now that I don't have a name anymore. It's very odd, even for my dead mind, to think that I'm no longer a person. I am dead. That thought scares me, one thing I can still feel since dying is fear. Raw, primal fear, as real as the hunger that comes with my condition. When I was first dead, I remember thinking it felt so odd to be hungry. I don't remember the old hunger anymore though. I do remember fear, and feel it now to the furthest extent a dead amygdala will let me. There's no quickening pulse though, just a feeling deep in my cells that screams out for my name.

I think I'm scared because in losing my name I lose my identity, and I suspect it to be the last step in becoming a zombie. I am dead but nameless, therefore I am no one. I can remember that even the truly dead have names. I remember the stones, the angels, the hearts, the carvings all with names on them and the dead beneath them. I don't want my last memory of humanity to be graves though. I know it shouldn't matter, but I don't like what I'm becoming. Especially if I lose my name, names are important. I dig through graying tissues of my own brain, through cobwebs of intricate thought and somehow I find myself outside.

We don't like the outside. We hate the sky, a gaping maw of blue or black waiting for us to let go of the ground and fall down it's throat. Mountains in the distance are its teeth. It's a creature with no eyes, like many zombies, it is just there to eat. I'm uncomfortable under it and stagger to find a way back into the safety of the airport. The sky is a god without eyes, but it can see me wandering and therefore wants to eat me. The sky god is a zombie too, only a breed that eats its own. A cannibal who gained power by eating its own kind, the sky is a wendigo.

As I'm shambling along to free the cannibal sky a sound seems to blow through my ears into my brain. A blaring noise, like a horn accompanied by a buzzing sort of hum, groans rise and I see that church is in service just a small distance away from me. It's where the dead gather and listen, waving their arms in the air and wailing along with wordless sermons given by the longer dead. They're called boneys, because they are simply skeletons, with clinging jerky like skin. Something in them is still alive though and that places them in a position of authority over us. They decided when and who we marry, they give us children and they are our priests. Speaking to the sky monster in a hideous wordless cry.

I find comfort in it though, more comfort than I would feel inside. Yes. Let me gather with my dead kin and dare the sky to feast. The tuneless music of the dead bids me near with a hum that I believe I can feel singing from my own bones. Addictive, sickeningly sweet, like the taste of a brain between my teeth soft and squishy, warm and delightful. I have not been dead long but I have tasted fresh meat. I stumble towards the sound, suddenly starving to be one of a mass waving my arms at the sky.

Not a person, not a name, just something dead.

On my quest to join the congregation I find myself passing the bloated bodies of airplanes. I know one of us, an odd one, lives inside one of the airplanes. I know him because his tie is red and remarkably clean. It's one bright spot in a world of mucking fashion. As I pass the plane he lives inside a very strange but familiar sound tickles at me. I know the sound is closer but it seems to only be a whisper in comparison to the buzzing in my bones.

It is a whisper I can hear though and that is what's important. The fact I can hear it gives me pause and I hear it clearer. It's music, living music, instruments and a voice from ages past. I'm unable to find the words, I hear a voice but it's all I hear. It's all I need to hear, a spasm ripples through my body and I no longer pay attention to the cries for boneys. I stand in silent bliss listening. I can remember music, I can remember the feelings it would shake into my form. I remember nervously giggling. I remember his arms around me, his hand holding mine, and then a pang of pain. Sharp and real, in my foot..

We were dancing-no. I was teaching him to dance. We were in a house, our safe haven, and music played from a record. I wanted to dance. I asked him to dance but he didn't know how. I decided to teach him and pulled him along after me. He tried to hold me close but I squirmed to make him move after me-and then he stepped on my foot.

I look down to the foot that's bare and see a bruise, black and ugly. When we die, truly die, our blood pools towards the ground. However, I am a new kind of dead, so I suppose I am an exception to that. I suppose blood is still flowing-but I know that the bruise across my toes is from teaching Callum to dance.

Suddenly I have a name again, I have a whisper across my lips as he apologizes, mumbling my name.

'Detta' Air hisses from the hole in my throat as I mouth the name, my name. I continue to hiss as I continue to try and say it. Put my own voice in place of his-but why? I stop trying and instead cling to the memory, sitting beneath the plane where the music comes from. His name is Callum, he's tall, his hair is curly, and he still can't dance. I repeat it, unable to speak but moving my lips. I think it's what I'm saying at least.

I lean back against a flattened tire that once helped the massive creature of metal slow and stop. I myself slow and clinging to nothing more than a faded out memory. I fall asleep for the first time since I've died.


End file.
